The KNAUF company supported the creation of a documentary film about the life and work of Andrei Kryachkov, an outstanding architect, according to whose projects about 100 buildings and structures were built in the cities of Siberia. The film was shown on February 8 at the Pobeda cinema in Novosibirsk.
Andrey Kryachkov is one of the founders of the Siberian architectural school. There are buildings built according to his designs in Tomsk, Omsk, Krasnoyarsk, Kemerovo, but most of his works are in Novosibirsk. Kryachkov designed the buildings of the Museum of Local Lore, the Red Torch Theater, the Regional Consumer Union, the Regional Government and the famous Stokvartirny House, which became the symbols of the city, the project of which won the Grand Prix at an exhibition in Paris in the late 1930s.
Realizing the significance of Andrey Kryachkov's work and the importance of his legacy for contemporary architects, KNAUF agreed to sponsor a documentary film about his life. The initiative was taken by the Novosibirsk State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, a long-term partner of the company, on the basis of which, in particular, the KNAUF Consulting Center has been operating for several years.
The screening of the film was the culmination of events that took place in 2016 and were timed to coincide with the 140th anniversary of the architect. To create a 50-minute tape, unique documents, newsreels and photographs were used; the architect's granddaughter and students took part in the filming. The film tells about the origin and fate of Kryachkov and his relatives, which, together with a story about his work, makes the tape interesting to a wide range of viewers.
The final shots of the picture are a monologue of Andrei Kryachkov himself, in which he explains why he chose Siberia for his life and work, and assesses the results of his work in the architectural and pedagogical field: “In the view of the then capital, Siberia was a great wilderness, but I took a chance. I really devoted quite a lot of time to Novosibirsk, built here with pleasure, and my first gray hair appeared partly because of it. Although Novosibirsk architecture is not an ideal, but in the rush in which this work took place, with those shortages of materials and labor, I believe that a lot has been done well."
